When the SIR process formally started in Telangana on June 25, there was panic among the public and political parties as the Election Commission of India (EC) had already flagged 88,13,207 voter records with anomalies out of 2,32,96,233 votes digitally mapped by June 4. The number of flagged votes could go up once all 3.39 crore votes are mapped. Though the EC has clarified that a flagged record does not amount to fraud and that discrepancies can be rectified by submitting the required documents, many voters have found it difficult to understand the process and provide the necessary documentation.
Telangana Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy has instructed party ministers, MLAs and leaders to be on the ground and help voters retain their names on the electoral rolls. Deputy Chief Minister Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka also expressed his displeasure over his own vote being flagged and demanded that the EC review its methodology. These statements highlight the anxiety within the ruling party—a concern shared by other political parties as well. However, a tech-savvy Congress leader has come up with a solution.
Syed Khalid Saifulla, president of the Hyderabad District Congress Committee, has developed an app for Booth Level Agents (BLAs) that enables them to identify potential duplicate votes, voter records with anomalies, and missing voters. A former software engineer with Invesco Mutual Fund, Khalid later worked with the Congress party's IT wing in New Delhi as its national vice-president. In 2017, he developed the "Missing Voters App" and claimed it helped identify nearly three crore missing voter records, work that he says was acknowledged by the EC.
This time, he has developed the BLAs App, which provides booth-wise details of voter records with anomalies, duplicate entries, unmapped voters, possible unregistered voters and households that did not receive enumeration forms. "We have downloaded the constituency-wise electoral rolls, converted them into Excel sheets and identified different issues. We also trained BLAs to identify these problems. These details are just a few clicks away for BLAs," Khalid told THE WEEK.
BLAs are given access to the app through a login. They can access data on all voters in their booths and check for various issues while visiting households. For now, the app is available in five assembly constituencies in Hyderabad district, where, according to Khalid, nearly 40 per cent of voter records have been flagged for anomalies. He blamed AIMIM for the high anomaly rate. "The party MLAs control the BLAs, take their credentials and enter voter data into the electoral rolls. They upload voter data without adequate knowledge of the enrolment process," he alleged.
Khalid said he has proposed rolling out the app across Telangana, and the Congress leadership is yet to make a decision. He believes the app can significantly improve the efficiency of BLAs by making voter-related information readily available and help increase voter registration during the SIR process.
